“Let it go, Haemon,” I said.

  “That is an absurd thing to say,” he replied. “I am not going to just stand back and watch you die.”

  And he wouldn’t, of course. Like the path that was leading me to the Trireme, Haemon’s course was already set. Neither of us could change it now.

  “Fine,” I said. “Then there’s someone you should meet, and I can tell you where to find him.”

  13

  Haemon

  The symbol for the North District, where I found myself in the early hours of the morning, is the sphinx. Head of a woman, body of a lion, wings of a bird. Best of all worlds, Mom liked to say; everybody should be so lucky. Sphinxes were known for being merciless as well as tricky, tellers of riddles and killers of men, and I’d found that the symbols for the districts reflected their personalities—or maybe the personalities had grown around the symbols.

  Either way—I knew to be wary of the North District. I was the High Commander’s son, after all. So I went with a knife at my hip and my eyes open. I took the path she’d told me to take, which sidestepped the worst parts. It carried me down narrow alleys with laundry hanging overhead, around sharp bends with bulging mirrors attached to the corners of buildings so you could see who was coming the other way, under wires that dipped too low so neighbors could share electricity illegally. Everything smelled either like trash or like stew, and the worst was when you got a whiff of both at once.

  I ended up at Parthenopaeus’s house, a green door with the little pot of pinkish rocks next to it. There were stubs of corn-silk cigarettes among the rocks. I knocked before I could really think about it, and then I thought about it afterward. Knocking here was basically treason. That was how Dad would see it. I could still turn around, probably, without anybody knowing, but I still had this feeling that he would know. He knew more than people thought he did. He was always having people followed, or “disappeared,” hence all the monkshood in the greenhouse—great for poisoning someone so nobody would know it. Wasn’t hard to poison someone in a city where people died all the time.

  Anyway, the door opened. A little old lady stood inside the foyer, her face crumpling in like a collapsed cake, a scarf covering her hair. She stared up at me without speaking.

  “I’m here to see Parth,” I said. “Antigone sent me.”

  “That girl’s nothing but trouble,” she said.

  I smiled a little. “I like her just fine.”

  “Then you’re nothing but trouble, either. Come in.”

  She shuffled away from the door, and I bent my head to step into the house. All I knew about Parth was that he was big and not as stupid as he pretended to be—that was Antigone’s description. I wasn’t quite ready for all the people in the house—men, all of them, except for the old woman, draped over couches and chairs, or crouched around the coffee table playing a board game I didn’t recognize. One of them stood up, and he was big, taller and broader than me, his head shaved.

  “Who’re you?” he said. I was pretty sure this was Parth.

  “Antigone sent me,” I said.

  “That wasn’t what I asked.”

  “I’m Haemon,” I said.

  “Kreon’s boy?”

  “Yes and no,” I said.

  “What the hell kind of answer is that?”

  “There are sons and there are sons.” I shrugged. “Whose boy are you?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, and then motioned for me to follow him into the next room. It was hard to find a path across the space—it wasn’t a big living room, and there were six people in it, all staring at me like they wanted to burn holes in my skin. I stepped into the kitchen and I was relieved to close the door behind me. Parth had gone right to the sink to wash a plate. He pointed with wet fingers at one of the chairs.

  “Sit,” he said. “You said Tig sent you?”

  “I didn’t know anybody but her siblings called her that.”

  “They don’t, I guess,” he said. “Thirsty?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He wiped his hands off on a dish towel and turned to face me. He didn’t sit down, just leaned against the counter and folded his massive arms.

  “Well? What are you here for?”

  “Do you know what happened to her yesterday?”

  “Heard she got caught trying to suck out Pol’s genes,” he said.

  “And she was sentenced to execution via Trireme.”

  “As I understand it, the word ‘execution’ was never used.”

  My chest tightened.

  “She’ll spend years alone in space,” I said. “And then starve to death up there.”

  This, at least, seemed to sober him. He looked down at his toes.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Listen, she was never all that friendly to me, but I wouldn’t wish that on her. Or most anyone.”

  “Well. I don’t intend to let it happen.”

  The faucet was letting out a slow trickle of water that tap, tap, tapped on the bottom of the sink. Parth sized me up.

  “How do you mean to stop it?” he said. “What your daddy wants to happen pretty much does happen, dunno if you’ve noticed.”

  “I don’t know how to stop it,” I said. “That’s why I’m here, talking to a rebel leader.”

  Parth laughed.

  “What gives you the idea I’m that?”

  “She did,” I said.

  “She’s just some girl with busted wiring.”

  “She said you were a smart guy who tried to look dumb,” I said.

  He laughed again—deeper this time, like he really meant it. “Smart guys don’t commit treason, especially not in front of Kreon’s kid.”

  “Well, I committed treason two nights ago, by setting off an explosion that gave Antigone her opportunity to use an Extractor,” I said. “So now you have a weapon against me. Maybe you won’t mind so much giving me one against you.”

  “How would someone like you know how to set off an explosion?”

  “I had a rebellious phase as a teenager,” I said. “Used to go to East Field, you know that empty lot in the Neïstan? I’d blow things up there. All you need is some fertilizer, and the High Commander’s house has plenty.”

  “Shameful waste of fertilizer.”

  “Like I said, I was a teenager. Not exactly thinking about conservation of resources at that age.”

  A shout from the next room punctured our silence. I straightened, sure for a second that my father’s men had come to the apartment—but laughter followed, just the board game running its course. Parth waited for it to die down before he spoke.

  “Say you could set off another explosion,” he said. “How would you time it?”

  “There are ways,” I said. “The more important question is: time it for what purpose?”

  “Do you know how an arch is built, Haemon?” Parth said. He pulled out the seat across from mine. It creaked under his weight. He put the heels of his hands on the table. “You build up the sides, so they curve up, like this.” He curved his hands so the heels stayed planted and the fingers arched over them. “And then you stick a rock right here at the middle.” He tapped his fingertips together. “We call that rock a cornerstone. It keeps the arch stable, so both sides are balancing against each other. But if you knock out the cornerstone…” He slapped the table with both palms. “Wham. Arch comes down. So you can either spend all your time chipping away at the little bricks, or…” He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “… you can go straight for the one that really matters. See what I mean?”

  I did, of course.

  My father was the High Commander of this city. The cornerstone. He was not the only one in power here, but all the others took guidance from him, sought his approval. Without him, everything would fall apart.

  “You want me to kill my father,” I said.

  “Now, I didn’t say anything of the kind,” Parth said. “But if we were to lose our cornerstone, there are a great deal of people poised to take advantage of the chaos that would follow.”

  “Opportunists?” I said. “And would any of them be any better than the High Commander?”

  “Some better, some worse,” he said. “But all committed to a free election.”

  “And if the election turns out someone worse?”

  Parth leaned forward.

  “Then at least we would be responsible for our own doom,” he said, “instead of someone else deciding it for us. And really, isn’t that the most any of us can hope for?”

  I wished I had asked for water. My throat was dry and I needed something to do with my hands.

  The first time I saw my father’s cruelty on full display was during the riots, as he watched my uncle, Oedipus—the first and last victor of a free election this city had had—get struck down by soldiers. He did nothing to stop it; he just watched the man fall. I was only a boy at the time, still half convinced that my dad, a man I was afraid of, might have some good in him.

  He never touched me, or my mother, only raised his voice to us a handful of times. But there was always danger in him, boiling just beneath the surface. It made my steps careful and my words guarded. It made me sneak into the kitchens to play poker instead of just going there. He didn’t have to shout at me or smack me around for me to know what wasn’t going to be acceptable to him. His shadow was long, and filled every corner of our house.

  Still, the little boy who wanted to find something behind the fear lived.

  Could I kill Kreon?

  “How would this save her?” I said.

  “She’s the figurehead of a resistance movement now,” Parth said. “For some reason, you talk to people about food shortages, power outages, contaminated water, the government disappearing people—you might as well be speaking another language. But if you tell them their High Commander wants to send a pretty young thing into space to waste away? Suddenly they’re listening.”

  Parth leaned back and sighed.

  “What I’m telling you is,” he said, “people all over this goddamn city are itching to keep that ship from launching. You just have to give them an opening.”

  I thought of the monkshood blooming in our greenhouse, and the curve of Antigone’s hip in the moonlight, and the way my father had sneered at me as I argued for mercy. Somehow I didn’t feel like I was making a choice. I felt like he had already made all the choices, and I was just the response to his call, the effect of his cause.

  “That’s what I’ll do, then,” I said.

  14

  Antigone

  What ought a person wear to go to their tomb?

  I opened the doors of my wardrobe and stared. Just an hour ago, an aide from the Trireme office—a dusty, neglected place with a handful of employees, all of them engineers—had come to my door escorted by soldiers to tell me what to expect from the journey. I could pack a bag, he said, as heavy as I wanted, though I knew no one would offer to carry it for me. When he left, I had numbly filled a small sack with underwear and socks, comfortable pants and clean T-shirts, my father’s old sweater, my mother’s old necklace. I had bathed, meaning to savor the warm water for the last time. But that was the thing about last times—you kept pressing into yourself for a more pure experience, but the pressure made any experience impossible. I barely felt the water.

  I stood naked in front of the wardrobe, my skin still drying. Did I feel different, now that I had been seen, known? Now that I had felt yet another thing my body was capable of doing? More than two decades on this Earth and my body still surprised me. Perhaps that was why some people were so eager to have children. They wanted to test the boundaries of what their bodies could do, enter into a mysterious state that was no less mysterious for being experienced by so many others. I would not feel those things—life stirring inside me, my belly swelling and hardening like an eggshell. I would never feel them. But not all things are guaranteed for all people. That is the way of things.

  I took out the box from the bottom of my closet and opened it. Inside was my mother’s wedding gown. A simple garment, all things considered, with some beading at the bodice that she had stitched herself—I could tell by how crooked the threads were, when I looked closely. It was white, its brightness only a little faded by time. The fabric was so fine it felt like water in my hands. I shook it out, gently, and then unzipped the back and stepped into it. She was built a little narrower than I was, but also taller. The straps were set a little wider than my shoulders, and the train dragged on the ground by an inch or two, but it fit.

  I felt wild, mad, as I twisted my hair up away from my neck. As I dabbed a red stain on my lips, so like blood, and smeared it into my cheeks to make them look flushed. I stood before the mirror, facing away from the room as a servant arrived with my lunch tray.

  “Tig.”

  I had not given the servant a second glance. She was dressed in the usual uniform, her hair pulled back so tight it looked painful. But as I looked at her in the mirror, standing with the tray in her hands, I realized she was Ismene. I turned, heat rushing into my cheeks as she saw me in our mother’s wedding gown.

  “How did you get in here?” I said.

  She set the tray down on my desk and rushed toward me, her hands outstretched. I took them in mine without thinking twice. Her palms were cold and trembling. Her entire body was trembling, her breaths shaking on the way out.

  “I bribed the maid with coffee,” she said. “The guards didn’t recognize me.”

  No one ever recognized Ismene. There was something about her face—pretty, but forgettable.

  “Idiots,” I said.

  Her eyes dropped to my body, wrapped in fine white fabric, and my feet, bare and dusty on the floor.

  “You’re wearing Mom’s dress.”

  I cringed, pulling away. “I know. It’s stupid. I should leave it here for you—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, you have to wear it. Imagine the look on Kreon’s face when he sees you in it.”

  She turned me around so we were both looking at my reflection in the mirror, her chin just above my shoulder.

  “Besides,” she said, “I don’t intend to marry.”

  “Nor did I,” I said. I gentled my voice. It was different for Ismene than it was even for me, I knew. “We don’t always have a choice in the matter.”

  “No, no, you don’t understand.” She frowned at me. “I intend to go with you, instead.”

  “Ismene—”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t help you,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t knit our fates together like I should have. I’m so—”

  I pulled her into my arms, fierce, our heads almost colliding. I could feel her jawbone against my cheek, her fragile shoulders under my wrists. Life had made us both spare, even living in Kreon’s house. We were very sharp to the touch, knife-edge women.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Do you think I want you to suffer the same fate as me? I’m so glad you didn’t help me, now.”

  But she shook her head and pulled back from me.

  “I don’t want to go with you so that I can redeem myself,” she said. “I want to go with you so that you won’t be alone.”

  “Your reason makes no difference, I still won’t accept.”

  “My reason makes all the difference,” she said firmly. “I am not a miserable sinner wearing sackcloth and dust. I am your sister, who would rather live a few years with you than many years without you. Is that so difficult to understand?”

  In that moment, I wanted to accept her offer, and I felt ashamed. I didn’t want to die alone in the emptiness of space. I didn’t want to see and have no one to share with, to scream and have no one hear me. I didn’t want to be the first and the last of us to know what it was like to float among the stars. There was warm temptation in agreeing, like giving in to the desire to fall back into bed on a cold morning. But behind it was the horrible guilt I knew I would feel if I did.

  She cupped my face in her hands.

  “What are the years worth?” she said in a whisper, her eyes fixed on mine. “Let me tell you a secret, Antigone, something I have never told anyone: I am glad the same blood runs in our veins. I’m like a bird that’s fallen in love with its own reflection; I am relieved every time I see myself in your face, and our mother, and our father. If I stay here without you, I will never be able to be what I should, I will only wear away at my time, waiting for the end.”

  She smiled, and I realized my cheeks were wet.

  “If I go with you,” she said, “we will have a beautiful, brief adventure. So let me give you this. Let me take this from you.”

  I closed my eyes. My face was hot. I had heard, for just a moment, not Ismene’s voice, but the voice of our mother. And I wondered if maybe I was wrong—maybe immortality did exist, if my mother could speak through Ismene. If I could still hear her, even after death.

  I couldn’t speak. I nodded instead.

  15

  Eurydice

  That morning I looked at Kreon’s razor, drying on the edge of the sink, and thought about the day Haemon was implanted in my body. How I had, for an hour, thought about the end. Maybe it was natural to think about death when you were making new life. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, procedure was what carried me through: I simply did what I was supposed to until the urge faded.

  The Trireme was set to launch in late morning. It was poised at the edge of a clearing in the distance. The clearing abutted a gentle hill. A crowd waited at the top of that hill, in a bare patch of street hemmed in by buildings, not unlike the one where the whole nasty business had taken place the day before yesterday.

  I went to the building that faced the Trireme and climbed up the fire escape to the balcony overlooking the square. I was careful to stand in the shadows where the crowd below couldn’t see me. They had already gathered. From a distance, it might have seemed like they were there for a spectacle. People had been gathering to watch executions since time immemorial.

  I was sure that’s what Kreon would see. Just morbid curiosity, for most. For others, perhaps, pleasure. I knew the oddities that afflicted our species. Maybe that’s why my mother was convinced I was a prophet—because I saw things clearly.